Bruce Ediger’s Techdirt Comments

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But this is EXACTLY what you wanted

The only thing I use BitTorrent for is to download Linux releases. I only download Linux releases that don't carry a price, like Slackware or Arch.

When I do that sort of very, very legal downloading, I get connections from other "P2P" people downloading the same Linux release.

What's my defence? Will I be accused and have to pay $35?

Also, I run a web server and SMTP server on my basement machine. I have no idea who makes connections to the web server. Will this open me up to accusations? If so, why? Cyveillance regularly trawls my web site, and they have probably determined I'm not sharing anything copyrighted by anyone else. Go ask.

This is an amazingly ill-conceived plan, with so many unintended consequences it makes my head spin. You are un-American for advocating such a rights-violating, cartel-enabled system.

Sci-Fi Future!

Imagine a (not unlikely) future where this could happen. Give (some) people "representational rights" or some such legalistic piffle to allow them to control how and when they appear in the press. Then, use those "property rights" to leverage a DRM system, installed by law in all cameras, to keep just anyone from taking a picture of a "Rightsholder". Those Rightsholders would quickly become a privileged class, a kind of computer-enforced aristocracy.

And, given the really-o truly-o inability of DRM to work perfectly, it would enable some lower class people, who bear a weird, not-always-humanly-discernable resemblance to a Rightsholder, to almost magically disappear from images. Including Police Cameras. Which would lead a small fraction of them, the Ghosts in the Machine, to live a life of crime.

Serious inquiry about "excessive free speech"

I've noticed the tendency to put speech on a scale, with some speech being "excessive", coming from Anonymous Cowards in the recent past. I don't think that most AC's post enough to get a good sense of who they are, but I have a feeling that the AC in question is the legally-trained one, the one who also tends to either say outright or imply that asking a lawyer is the first step in determining the safety of just about everything.

In his or her case, saying something that un-American is a really good reason to remain Anonymous. If this is the legally-trained Coward, then it's more proof that "legal" thought has come completely unstuck from reality, and crawled up inside itself. The very thought that one can decide that someone else has "too much" free speech is just embarassing, something best kept to yourself. it's just plain weird that someone who (probably) has studied the US Constitution can arrive at that conclusion.

Where are the "just take a bus or drive" trolls, now?

It's hard for me to imagine that these sorts of "random" searches are at all constitutional, much less in an American spirit. Where's the presumption of innocence? Where's the right to be secure in your person and property?

So, two things:

1. Everybody with a conscience must have quietly resigned or transferred out of ICE. The New Yorker article on Thomas Drake and the NSA (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer) shows that some NSA people had consciences, and resigned over un-American activities. I will graciously assume this is true of ICE as well. Shame on the rest of the nest of VIPRs: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and King would all be ashamed of louts such as yourself.

2. Where did all the "just take a bus, train or drive" trolls? What's next internal passports? Little "living permits" like the Soviet Union used to have? Terrorism isn't the new communism, it's even better... for the New Security State thugs and bureacrats.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Oh, yeah, about the extra chromsome: How dare you make fun of my Avatar's extra "Y"! You're like the Anonymous Coward who thinks like a lawyer and uses "freetard" as an insult, you have no taste, no culture, no sensibility. My Avatar was born this way, what's your excuse, you were born in a barn?

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Wonderful, to the point arguments, Mr Lateral. Insults that a teenager could love.

No, I'm not saying "taking something that belongs to a successful business is OK." Context, man, context is everything. Also, reading comprehension helps.

The statement was made that "all sales" were down from when Napster started, to when Limewire was shutdown. I merely pointed out that wasn't true, that even the most pirated things (I'm told), "movies", haven't caused a drop in sales.

Concentrate, "buck". There's lots to be learned here, and you're missing the point by trying to spin for the search engines.

Re:

I would say, that if free speech is a good idea at all, it should be afforded to all. It's a right, not a privilege, after all. If we, the US citizenry, allow you, the shilling PR flackery, to redefine free speech as a privilege, then freedom of speech is just something to be taken away as punishment when the citizenry misbehaves. Oh, wati... that's what the horribly-named PROTECT-IP bill appears to do.

You may make it illegal, but you'll never make it unpopular. Your PR will come back to haunt you. Mark my words.

Where are the pro-PATRIOT Act Trolls?

Really. Can't any muster the breath to say trollish things about the PATRIOT Act? Maybe accuse someone of being the most pro-Terrorist blogger on the net or something? Do some illogical special pleading for usurpation of constitutional rights on the basis of "but, but, Terrorism!"? Can't "Blogger Bob" (why does that remind me of "Bagdad Bob", and "Tokyo Rose"?) use the Sockpupppet Management Software to generate some "grass roots" support for it?

No?

Then why the heck can't we all just agree to letting the PATRIOT Act lapse?

Article filled with (R) and (TM) and (C) characters

When you see an article filled with (R) and (TM) and (C) characters (online or not) you can be sure that the article is content free. All those characters, every one in its proper place, means that some entity, probably a large corporation or foundation, had the money to let a lawyer pore over the text in question, and insist that little (R) and (C) and (TM) symbols appear by words that he or she has verified are trademarks or copyrighted or whatever.

The corporation spent its money on a lawyer, rather than writing, proofreading or fact-checking. The article is probably on-brand, iconic and is guaranteed not to offend, and it meets Federal Requirements, does not violate the Law of the Sea, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and does not make Baby Jesus cry. But it's certain to suck.

Already happened

Hey, cameras already appear everywhere. Pay attention!

In the 2.5 blocks between bus stop and my building, I counted 16 cameras that probably could see me. These aren't special blocks with a federal building on them, either. So, yes, cameras everywhere, and cops shouldn't get special dispensation. It's something of an open secret that they abuse their position already anyway.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Einstein worked as a patent clerk in Switzerland around the turn of the last century. I doubt that Swiss patents in 1903 are the same as USA patents in 2011.

For starters, they didn't have software to patent back then, and people would have laughed a "business model" patent out of the office. In fact, in the USA, you had to submit a working model of your patentable thingy for a long time, up until 1880. I wonder if Switzerland had the same or similar policy?

Re: Re: Shocked! Shocked, I say!

Yes, really. The "design" of something, especially a process, can differ substantially from the intent that put the process in place.

Take software development in big corporations as an example. Big corporations put in place "methodologies" that have the intent of making quality software, and indeed, making it on schedule and predictably.

The reality is that the design of the system almost always devolves into a bunch of paperwork, because the folks that *design* the process have different goals than the people who said the process should exist.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Section 112 says that, if you say so. Just like the US Constitution gives Congress the Authority to declare war, and yet, here we are, in 2.5 wars. The 4th Amendment to that same constitution gives the citizenry freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, yet all US adults can rely on the FACT that our government listens to us all every day, and that the FBI issues "national security letters" without any judicial oversight whatsoever.

You just proved my point by giving out legal piffle that contradicts most people's day-to-day experience. It's like the fine print in car commercials on Tee Vee: the warning's all there, but it goes by so fast you can't read it. So, nobody believes the ads.